Big thanks to all the collaborators ❤️:
Simon Fassnacht,
@markusforamitti.bsky.social
@janakoehler.bsky.social
@todorova.bsky.social
@clauslamm.bsky.social
@mauriciojdmartins.bsky.social

oh and also I worked on this for much longer than this past month of course 🫠

The start of LG protests or total past coverage didn’t have clear lasting effects. This suggests the Radical Flank Effect is short-lived and needs sustained attention to stay impactful. How much this truly affected attitudes towards more sustainable climate policies also remains unclear.

6/7

We found that more Last Generation coverage in the past 30 days led to more positive media attitudes toward FFF across left- and right-wing outlets and in user comments of left-wing outlets. But in right-wing outlets' user comments, it had the opposite effect: more negativity.

5/7

For this purpose we analyzed:

▶️ 2,376 news articles
▶️ 192,973 user comments

We used GPT4 (validated beforehand) to assess attitudes toward FFF in these texts and tested how the start of LG protests and media coverage predicted shifts in sentiments.

4/7

We studied how German media framings and readers' attitudes towards Fridays For Future were influenced by protests from the more disruptive Last Generation. This offers real-world insights into the RFE complementing prior studies conducted in highly controlled settings.

3/7

The Radical Flank Effect (RFE) suggests that disruptive protests can shift and boost public support for more moderate groups following the same cause. Even unpopular disruptive actions can thus benefit a cause by helping others in their movement gain traction.

2/7